The article discusses the potential for using institutional theory to understand organisational behaviour, and to identify alternative behaviours that could contribute to social change with regard to environmental and social issues. The discussion is based on three studies in which institutional organisation theory has been applied, while at the same time it identifies a common need to supplement the theory formation with other theoretical perspectives in order to address the actors' responsibilities and the power relationships that arose when environmental and social issues were developed in the respective organisational fields. The studies show that sustainable development, in the form of the acceptance of environmental and social responsibility, comprises political/social issues in which the dominance and power of institutions affect how the actors act. In a comparison of the studies, the time perspective plays a salient role in terms of the ways in which environmental and social issues are handled in organisational fields as they continue to mature. The freedom of action enjoyed by companies and government agencies appears to be limited by this process over time, and the options for legitimate behaviour seem increasingly to follow standardised models such as environmental management systems and social standards. At the same time, the environmental and social issues become depoliticised, and those constructions that fit into the standardised control models take precedence over a focus on deeper and more complex perspectives. In this context, institutional organisation theory contributes significantly to an understanding of the ways in which organisations translate ideas and act to achieve legitimacy in their environmental and social behaviours over time. Supplemental theoretical perspectives are also needed to elucidate what is not constructed as an environmental or social issue. By combining the merits of institutional organisation theory with critical perspectives, we are looking toward a developmental process that will enable analyses of potential social changes in relation to organisational behaviour.